


Abducted

by KaibaSlaveGirl34



Series: The Crow; Brandon Lee [9]
Category: The Crow (1994)
Genre: Abduction, Battle, Birds, Canonical Character Death, Cemetery, Character Death, Churches & Cathedrals, Community: comment_fic, Crows, Feathers & Featherplay, Guns, Jewelry, Kidnapping, Missing Scene, Necklaces, Other, Rings, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-02-16 19:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18697660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaibaSlaveGirl34/pseuds/KaibaSlaveGirl34
Summary: Set during the scene where Sarah is abducted soon after leaving the cemetery..





	1. Kidnapped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harry2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harry2/gifts).



> Disclaimer: The geniuses at Miramax Pictures own the 1994 film The Crow. I own the fanfics that I cook up from time to time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While heading back to her house from the cemetery, Sarah is abducted..

**Abducted**

“I better go sneak back in the house,” Sarah muttered, standing up and turning away from Eric so he wouldn’t see her tears as she walked away. How could she leave him? How could she give up the only family she’d ever known, ever wanted?

But how could he stay? And how could she keep him away from Shelly? She’d said it to Albrecht — she was alive and Eric was… dead. And all she had of him was this last goodbye.

But, as if she were tied to him by a leash, she came to a halt after just a few reluctant steps and turned back for one more look at him — hoping beyond hope that he had some magic or secret power to change what had to be. But there was nothing in his face except desolation, and his whole body shook with the effort to contain his sorrow. Suddenly, she felt terribly guilty for causing him so much pain.

“Bye,” she whispered, knowing of nothing that could comfort either of them, except to go away and leave him alone. He couldn’t even answer her, couldn’t find the words for an unhappiness beyond words, and finally she tore herself away from his sad grey gaze and walked dejectedly away from him, leaving him alone with Shelly at last.

Her steps were shuffling, as if she didn’t trust her feet to find their way safely across the ground, and her head was down, not daring to look more than a few feet ahead in time or space. She was trying not to think or feel — but all she knew was that nothing in her life had ever hurt as much as this.

 _I shouldn’t have come,_ she thought, in spite of her efforts not to think. _It hurts too much,_ she felt, in spite of her efforts not to feel. _Ah no, I’m tough. I can take it,_ she told herself, as she’d told herself so many times in the last year... but this time, she didn’t even **try** to believe it.

And so she shuffled despondently through the iron gates and past the wide steps leading to the great cathedral doors, heading for the street that would take her away from Eric forever, never looking up from her feet.

But even if she **had** looked up, she never would have seen the silent shadow watching for her, never would have heard the stealthy approach behind her. She knew nothing of the man who stalked her — until one of his cunning hands muffled her startled cries, while he snatched her effortlessly off the ground with the other.

“Shhh, shhh,” a velvety voice admonished her, while she squirmed and protested in his grasp. With that, he carried her swiftly over to a side door (which he gently pushed to the left side with his foot). “Shh. Take it easy, sweetheart.”

But she was too frightened to understand his words, all her grief forgotten in the face of this unexpected assault. His fingers cut off her breath, and his arm crushed her ribs; she hurt only herself in her struggles against him, but sheer claustrophobic panic drove her to fight against him anyway.

He carried her deep into the center of the church, fitfully lit by a few scattered candles and the streetlights outside, and set her on her feet in front of a long-haired man and an oriental woman, his left hand still on her mouth and the other heavy on her shoulder, still imprisoning her. She felt like a baby mouse trapped between three hungry cats.

The woman stepped forward, studying Sarah with pitiless eyes — eyes which were immediately drawn to Shelly’s ring. She lifted the precious gold circlet in careless fingers, defiling it by her very touch, but Sarah was too terrified to protest, even when Grange took his hand away from her mouth and put it on her head while now gripping her upper arm with his free hand. Then the woman looked back at the man with her; Sarah followed her glance... and her heart almost stopped.

It wasn’t that she recognized him — she’d never even **seen** him before — but she’d heard all her life of the man with the nose like an eagle’s beak, hair like a dark curtain and the body of a trained warrior, who was never seen without the mysterious oriental woman called Myca, who was his constant companion, or Grange, the clever black man who was his chief lieutenant. She didn’t know his real name, but on the streets he was known as Top Dollar, and he was king in the kingdom of evil that had run this town since before she was born.

And he had **taken** her! Sarah didn’t know why, or how he’d come to this place, or what he wanted with her. All she knew was that this hungry cat was the deadliest of tigers, and the look in his eyes burned her like fire.

When he saw the little ring that Myca held up for him, he lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken question. Something in her glance must have told him the ring was important because he turned his attention back to Sarah with a cruel smirk.

“What is that? Some sort of souvenir there, from your pal?” he said sardonically, as he snapped the cord ruthlessly from her neck. “I’ll just keep it for good luck, whaddya say?”

Her neck still smarting from the cord, she could only stare at him in frozen terror and say nothing, weeping inside over the loss of Shelly’s ring. All her street kid’s defiance shriveled to nothing before the threat of his heartless smile as she realized that she wasn’t as tough as she **thought** she was... or **needed** to be.

Then Myca stepped between them again and stroked Sarah’s face with a glossy black feather, looking deep into her fear-dilated eyes, smiling so strangely at what she saw that Sarah could barely breathe. She tried to draw away from that baleful look, but only drove her head back against Grange’s unyielding chest.

“Her eyes... are so innocent,” the woman hissed in her dark accented voice, and Sarah saw death looking at her through those black almond eyes.

It shocked her out of her terrified immobility. “Eric! Eric!” she yelped before Grange’s hand closed over her mouth again, but it wasn’t enough, she knew. Eric was too far away; there was too much stone and space between them — he could never hear her.

But now that she’d begun to fight them, she couldn’t stop. Almost mindlessly she struggled as Grange swiftly tied her wrists together and Myca began dragging her up a tight twisting stairwell. For a second, by a broken window, the woman’s grasp slipped and she was able to cry out Eric’s name again, calling uselessly for his help, but then a gag was bound around her mouth and she was forced higher and higher up the steps.

“Good,” Myca said in a strange voice, as she forced Sarah to hurry up the stairs. “He hears... and he comes.” What did she mean? Eric? No, that was impossible — nobody could hear her up here, and the woman had no way of knowing what Eric was doing. He was probably in heaven with Shelly by now... and she was the prisoner of a crazy woman.

Finally they stopped, so dizzyingly far above the ground that the bottom of the stairwell was lost in darkness, and Myca tied her firmly to one of the support posts before hurrying down the steps, leaving her alone in the dark. Desperately she strained against the ropes, scraping her wrists raw. But all her efforts were useless; she couldn’t get free, and she couldn’t make any more noise over the gag than the frightened, trapped mouse she knew she was.

A cold draft swept through the tower, carrying the scent of rain, and lightning etched the cracks in the boarded-up windows around her, followed a few seconds later by the ominous rumble of thunder. Then all was silent again, and Sarah sobbed in fear. By now, Eric was gone and she was more alone than she’d ever been in her life.

They were going to kill her — she’d seen it in their eyes. But she’d seen also the promise of something even worse planned for her, and she was afraid that dying was going to be the easiest thing they would force upon her.

At least dying would take her back to Eric.

The thunder sounded again, a little closer, and rain began hissing down onto the stones of the old cathedral. There was no other sound from below, no other sound except her own heart pounding against her ribs, and her own breath sobbing around the cruel gag in her mouth. No other sound...

Then a shot exploded far below her, its echoes ripping through the still air — a shot, and voices, muffled by distance, and she knew somehow that her own life or death were being decided down there by people she didn’t know, in ways beyond her understanding.

Another shot stunned her with its echoes, and she wailed in mindless panic as she jerked against her bonds, soaking the ropes around her wrists with her own blood. And from below came the sound of more and more gunfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


	2. In Top Dollar’s Clutches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah finds herself in the clutches of Top Dollar..

High above them, Sarah writhed against her bonds, terrified by the gunfire that echoed below her, then even more terrified by the silence that followed it. Then she heard the hurrying feet climbing the stairs and her heart nearly stopped.

 _Maybe it’s Eric,_ she thought wildly, grasping at hope even though she knew there wasn’t any to be had. It wasn’t Eric; it was them, as she’d known it would be. Top Dollar untied her from the newel post and imprisoned her with a rough hand.

“I want him,” Myca hissed, and Sarah quailed when she realized the woman had to mean Eric.

“He’s yours,” Top Dollar smiled sardonically, handing her his gun. “You take that,” he whispered, then kissed her with carnal abandon while he held Sarah close to him with one hand. “I’ll be back,” he promised as he lifted Sarah carelessly and started up the stairs with her. Looking over his shoulder, she saw Myca starting cautiously back down.

 _Look out, Eric! She’s coming,_ she thought dizzily, her skin crawling at Top Dollar’s touch, praying that Myca wouldn’t hurt him.

But it was a vain hope. Sarah jerked in Top Dollar’s arms when she heard the shots and he paused, swinging her around so they could both watch the gun battle going on below them. “Pretty careless about your continued good health,” he muttered when a bullet _whinged_ by them, but she knew that Myca had fired first and Eric was only trying to defend himself.

Then she heard a cry from below and the sound of a heavy body falling down the steps.

“So much for your pals,” Top Dollar gloated. “And Myca’s got that bird, so that just leaves you... and me.” He ran a finger lightly down her face, smiling with sensual anticipation when he saw how even that slight touch repelled her. “Whaddya say we play a little game?”

But Top Dollar was wrong.

It had been Albrecht who fought with Myca, climbing the steps and firing at the shadowy figure above him, while Eric fought his own battle against the weakness of his body. And it was Albrecht who was shot, with a bullet meant for Eric. He staggered back down the steps, losing his gun God-only-knew-where in the shadows, and slumped against the wall of the tower, a stricken look on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


	3. Myca’s Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myca meets her end at the claws of the crow..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter.. :)

Slowly, heavily, every step taking all his strength, Eric climbed the stairs to where Myca waited for him — the crow in one hand and her deadly gun in the other. He didn’t even know what he was going to do when he reached her, only that if she shot him again this body would fail him, and his soul... he didn’t know what would become of his soul. But he could guess the kind of fate that awaited Sarah with Top Dollar, and he would willingly risk his body and his soul — his hopes of reaching Shelly and anything else he had — to save her.

_(Wait. Be still.)_

Eric paused below Myca, obeying that unspoken command, half leaning on one of the corner posts, panting from his exertions. Exhaustion etched his face as he looked up at her, but an intense determination challenged the gun she pointed at him.

She glanced down at the crow, quiet in her delicate grasp, and smiled triumphantly. “This is all the power you ever had. Now, it is mine.” She looked at Eric, helpless and unarmed, like a sacrificial victim before her, and she dropped her eyelids in sensual regret.

“Pity there is not more time... for us.” Then she lifted her gun, aiming straight for Eric’s eyes. And still he didn’t move; he just stood there slumped against the post, watching her through a damp tangle of hair, his grey eyes dark with hatred.

But the crow had not been waiting without reason or purpose. It had taken nearly every bit of its supernatural power to keep it and Eric “alive” and to finally begin healing them. Even so, neither of them were restored to anything like their full strength yet, and so they had to wait until the last possible moment to act and Myca relaxed her hold on the crow, just enough...

It was a big bird and a strong one when it had to be, and now it had to be as never before in its existence. It hated this woman, and knew well how to make its attack. A crow’s ancient instinct is to go for the eyes... and Myca’s eyes were only inches away from its wicked beak.

With that, the crow dug its claws fiercely into her flesh and buffeted her mercilessly with its powerful wings, stabbing at her face again and again with a two-inch long beak that was as hard as iron and as sharp as one of her own knives.

Her screams shocked every one of them that could hear — except Eric. He knew what this woman had done to Sarah and sensed through his link with the crow what she’d planned to do to her, and his only emotion as he watched the crow destroy her was regret that he wasn’t the one doing it.

In a cold rage he watched her stagger blindly, breaking through the rotted railing. Her flailing hands found the old bell-rope, and she clung there swaying for a moment, tipping the sweet-voiced bell above them to ring her death-knell. And then she fell, still screaming, to her doom in the shadows below, and he wasted even less pity on her than she’d shown Sarah. Now there was only Top Dollar... and Top Dollar had Sarah. But he was strong again — strong enough, at least, for this. If he wasn’t already too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


	4. Fall of a Villain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle between Eric and Top Dollar for Sarah’s life..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the final chapter of this story.. :)

Top Dollar cursed when he first heard the screams, knowing from the sound of them that something had gone terribly wrong. He didn’t even need the sound of her fall to tell him Myca was gone — the silence was enough. He looked down to see Eric slowly climbing the stairs after him, then he dragged Sarah over and dangled her perilously over the shaky railing.

“Here she is, ghost,” he jeered, then darted his eyes around the bell tower, looking for the best place to make his stand. He’d given his last gun to Myca, and all he had was the sword scabbarded on his back, but this twisting stairwell was no place to use a sword — which meant he would be at a disadvantage here fighting with that cursed ghost.

Gone… Myca was **gone**! Everything he had (and everyone who had been close to him) was gone, and there was no way to get any of it (or them) back. In little more than 24 hours, he had lost it all — first T-Bird’s crew, then all his men and his stronghold, then Grange… and finally, the one person who had made it all possible. For twenty-five years, she had been his mirror, his other self, his lover… his secret weapon. But now, he had nothing left — nothing, that is, except his hostage Sarah.

Nothing except revenge.

With a guttural snarl, he snatched her up and ran up another flight to where a boarded-up opening let out onto the long, leaded roof of the nave. He kicked through the boards and stepped out onto the narrow, two-foot wide flat peak of the roof and walked calmly to the far end, not seeming to mind the heavy rain that pounded him and made the footing slippery, nor by the fact that they were far higher than even his penthouse, with nothing but a steeply pitched roof on either side, and a sheer drop-off beyond.

There was little room to maneuver up here, but there would be room enough for one man and one ghost… and vengeance!

Sarah was almost paralyzed with fear — of Top Dollar, of the height, of the fight that she knew was to come. Squirming in his pitiless grip, she cried out hopelessly for Eric.

“D’ya think you can fly as good as my sister, little girl?” Top Dollar whispered malevolently, as Eric climbed through the opening and walked through the rain towards them. Sarah wasted no energy to answer him, blinking tears and raindrops off of her lashes as she looked at Eric with a desperate longing — she knew Top Dollar meant to throw her off of this roof before Eric’s horrified eyes, and she’d never see him again in life. It was almost more than she could bear.

“Let her go!” Eric commanded harshly, his voice deep and resonant against the thunder of the lashing storm. But the other man made no response. “You can have me. I won’t fight you,” he offered, meaning every word of it; Top Dollar couldn’t really kill him after all, and the sight of Sarah, so pale and frightened in that animal’s grasp sickened him past endurance.

But Top Dollar didn’t want an easy surrender. For all that he stood so calmly facing his Nemesis, he was filled with a homicidal fury — this man or ghost or whatever he was, had killed his sister and destroyed everything he’d spent his lifetime building. No! Eric Draven would fight… and he would die the final Death. But first, he too was going to lose that which he loved the most.

“Alright,” Top Dollar whispered, even as he took his supporting hands away from Sarah and shoved her almost casually off of the narrow ledge. Screaming a little, she staggered, then threw herself flat against the roof as she began to slide uncontrollably down its steep, slick surface.

“NO!” Eric yelled in anguish, reaching uselessly for her as she slid out of his reach, but Top Dollar kicked him viciously in the stomach and he doubled over in agony, staggering back away from her. Then, in one graceful, lethal movement, Top Dollar drew his sword and swept it at Eric with a gloating sneer of absolute mastery.

Eric recoiled from the deadly slash, falling back, then turned the fall into a backward roll, bleeding from the deep gash across his belly where the blade had caught him. He was injured and unarmed, defenseless against the trained swordsman attacking him with such ferocity, on his back and helpless, while Sarah…

But she wasn’t out of the picture yet.

When Top Dollar dropped her, she splayed her arms and legs, fingers, face — everything she could use to stop her slide over the edge and onto the ground so far below. And then she found what she’d been so desperately searching for — her fingers discovered an irregularity in the leading and curled over it with frantic strength.

For a few sickening seconds she was afraid the leading wouldn’t hold her weight, then she was afraid that her hands wouldn’t hold her weight… then she forgot to be afraid for herself at all, as she strained to look up and saw that Eric was on his back before Top Dollar.

Eric writhed away from another slash and tangled Top Dollar’s feet with his own, taking Top Dollar down too. Sarah hoped Top Dollar would fall all the way, but he was too agile to be caught like that — he grabbed the edge of the narrow ridge-top and broke his fall even as Eric was struggling to his feet.

Then Eric turned, taking advantage of Top Dollar’s slip for a split second to follow one of the crow’s fleeting instructions, and he grabbed the iron finial cross that adorned the end of the building. It was the right size for a sword, but it was firmly attached to its mounting… and it was a lightning rod.

Even as he wrapped his hands around the cross to pull it free, a bolt of lightning struck, and his scream of agony was louder than the thunder which followed. It took all of the strength that the crow could muster just to keep Eric on his feet.

It wasn’t going to be enough, Eric realized — he needed more than the crow could give him. They were both too battered and worn, and Top Dollar was fresh and strong… they couldn’t stop him. He was going to finish Eric off in spite of everything they could do, and then he would take Sarah again and make her really pay for Myca’s death.

She was dead. They were all dead; even Albrecht was doomed. Even with the cross to block the worst of the blows, he couldn’t hold his opponent off — he didn’t have the skill or the years of practice that Top Dollar was using so devastatingly against him, and his strength was failing, even with the crow’s help. Soon, the next blow, or the one after that was going to leave him vulnerable to a killing stroke, and that would be the end.

He felt desperate and crippled compared to Top Dollar’s lithe strength. Every step that he took away from that razor-sharp sword took him one step closer to the end of the nave, with its sheer drop down to the broad entryway steps, until finally he was forced to bend backwards against the waist-high finial block, nearly helpless against Top Dollar’s greater skill. Little good the crow could do him if he fell all that way, and little more could it do if Top Dollar cut him to pieces with that terrible blade.

Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off of them, even as she twisted helplessly, clinging to her precarious hand-hold. Years of swinging on the monkey bars at school had built up tough calluses on her palms — and now she needed every one of them! Then her scrambling feet broke through something and a portion of the roof fell away under her legs. She half-fell through the hole, digging her stomach painfully into its edge, and putting even more strain on her fingers. She wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer.

Far, far below her, she heard the bits of broken roof finally hit the ground… how soon before she followed them?

Above her, oblivious to her plight, the two men fought on.

Then, in the violence of their struggle, just as it seemed Top Dollar had overcome Eric, they both stumbled on the narrow, slippery ridge-top, and fell again, switching positions once more, giving Eric a little more room to maneuver. But by now it hardly mattered who was where — Eric could barely defend himself against Top Dollar’s pitiless advance. Top Dollar laughed triumphantly, beating him down with every blow, toying with him, prolonging his agony with sadistic delight.

Finally he grew tired of the game, and with one skillful movement, hooked the cross out of Eric’s hands, leaving him at his mercy. Eric skidded backwards away from that lethal blade and fell again as Top Dollar closed in for the kill. In a last desperate movement, he lashed out with his feet, catching Top Dollar in the belly and driving him back for a few precious seconds. And at last, luck favored him — Top Dollar’s sword flew out of his hand and vanished into the rain-shadowed night.

But Top Dollar didn’t care; he knew that he was the master here, and knew that Eric could not stand for long against him. With a maniacal burst of laughter, he threw himself at his weakened foe, knocking them both off of the narrow ridge-top to slide, as Sarah had done, down the leaded roof. For one horrible moment she thought they both were going over the edge, but at the last second they were stopped by one of the decorative pillars, stunning both of them for a moment.

Then Eric saw her.

“Sarah,” he cried hoarsely, reaching helplessly for her, turning his back for one fatal instant on Top Dollar.

“Look out!” she cried uselessly, but she was too late in any case. He always had more than one weapon, more than one blade, and standing now, Top Dollar drew his second sword, smaller than the first, but large enough to finish the game. Then, with the full strength of all his weight, he drove it entirely through Eric’s body!

She watched in an agony as great as his own as Eric arched against that terrible blow, the bloodied end of the blade projecting a foot and more from his chest, torment in every line of his body.

“Oh dear God,” his lips shaped the words, but his lungs were too paralyzed to give him breath enough to do more than gasp — a gasp that sounded more like a death rattle than anything else. Then, as Top Dollar triumphantly drew the gruesome blade out of Eric’s body with a hideous, wet sound, he slumped against the pillar, turning to face his foe one last time, sliding his back down the rough stone until he sat braced against it, trying futilely to draw air into his bleeding lungs.

Sarah turned her face away, weeping for his suffering. _He’s dead, and now Top Dollar will take me again… or maybe he won’t. Oh God, let me die here with Eric!_ But still she clung to the roof, her body refusing to surrender to the despair that clouded her mind.

That first volley of bullets in the boardroom had hurt Eric worse, and a dozen times in the battle that followed, the crow had repaired more damage than this one sword thrust had caused, but no longer — they were both too wounded by what they had been through, and by the terrible price to be paid for helping the living. Eric could barely hold himself upright before Top Dollar, and the crow was scarcely half-healed itself, struggling to do what it could for Eric.

It wasn’t going to be enough. He needed more — more strength, more healing, more time… and then Top Dollar, with overweening arrogance, gave them all three.

“You know, my daddy used to say ‘Every man’s got a devil, and you can’t rest ‘til you find him,’” he said, almost conversationally, as he squatted down in front of Eric’s slack body. And for the first time since the fight began, Eric allowed himself to hope, while he listened to Top Dollar gloat, giving the crow time to repair his ravaged body.

“What happened back there with you and your girlfriend… I cleared that building. Hell, nothing in this town happens without my say-so. So I’m sorry if I spoiled your wedding plans there, friend. If it’s any consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face.” He paused then, showing that evil smile to Eric, who stared fixedly at him, not even comprehending the mocking words.

Then Top Dollar pulled out one of Myca’s favorite knives and Eric blinked, sensing all the suffering engrailed upon its razor edge.

_(Do not fear that toy, warrior. You have a greater weapon.)_

_Yes… I understand._

Top Dollar held the wicked little knife before Eric and grinned in anticipation of the blood-letting to come. “You got a lot of spirit, son. I am gonna miss you.” Then he slanted a quick glance at Sarah and continued, “’Course, I still got **her** now, don’t I?” And the promise in his eyes almost made her let go of her hold on the roof.

But before Top Dollar could move against him, Eric spoke, “I have something to give you.” Bright blood bubbled on his lips and his face twisted with the effort it cost him to go on, “I don’t **want** it anymore.” Top Dollar stared skeptically at him, not afraid of anything he could do at this point. He barely flinched away when, with a convulsive movement, Eric reached out with one bloody hand and grabbed his head.

And then it was too late for him!

“Thirty hours of pain!” Eric gasped, as the memories he’d taken from Albrecht swarmed into Top Dollar’s mind. He reached with his other hand, storming Top Dollar’s consciousness, forcing him into the fiery corner of hell that he had created for Shelly. “All at once... all for **you**!”

For too many years Top Dollar had sown the wind that had scoured the city. Now at last the time had come for him to reap the whirlwind of his own evil.

The knife fell from his nerveless hand, and slowly he toppled backwards after it. And down through that rain-laden night he fell, in gravity-burdened flight, his eyes vacant and insane long before his limp body impaled itself — heart and head — upon the horns of a stone gargoyle below. And for many minutes afterward, the rain-spout that was the monster’s mouth ran with the blood of another monster.

Sarah had heard Top Dollar’s voice, but closed her ears to what he was saying — she couldn’t bear to hear him taunt Eric as he died. But when she heard his hoarse cries, she turned back in time to see him fall to such a gruesome death that she wanted to throw up. She almost couldn’t believe that he was dead. He’d been responsible for the worst unhappiness she’d ever known, and in the past few minutes he had nearly destroyed her, along with the last of everything she loved.

 _And he may yet have succeeded,_ she realized. She was too exhausted to help herself, all her strength and will spent. And Eric… Eric was gone, dead from a sword stuck all the way through him. Painfully she lifted her eyes to him, but all she could see was part of his shoulder where he sat, still slumped against the pillar just a few paces beyond her; then she felt herself slip a couple of inches as the edge of the roof under her stomach started to give way under her weight.

Suddenly it did give way, and she swung down into darkness, her full weight falling onto her abused hands. “Eric!” she shrieked in panic, even though she knew it was useless, as the falling roof-pieces clattered into the vast emptiness below her. She couldn’t hold on any longer… and Eric couldn’t help her — he was dead… and in another few seconds, she was going to be dead too. She only hoped she could find him wherever they were going.

“Eric!” she whimpered again, feeling her fingers slipping. _I don’t want to die!_

“Sarah!” An exhausted voice over her head drew her eyes upward and she gasped in disbelief. It was Eric! And he was alive… or whatever.

With a move that would have been slow even before he’d died, he reached and managed to get an arm around her and she fought her panic long enough to let go with one hand and take his other arm in a death grip. Finally, he pulled her up to him and they both tottered for a heart-stopping moment on the brink, then he dragged her back to the relative safety of the pillar and wrapped her in a hug that promised to protect her from hell and all its devils — which, in a way, he’d already done.

She was weeping as he held her — from the reaction to the last fifteen minutes, and because she knew he was going to leave her forever within the next fifteen minutes.

“Thank you, thank you,” she gasped breathlessly, over and over; but those two little words couldn’t begin to hold everything she wanted to put into them, and she finally subsided into watery hiccups.

“C’mon,” he muttered wearily, gently hauling her to her feet. “Let’s get you out of this rain before you catch your death,” and he smiled almost teasingly at her.

Then he had no more breath to spare as they made their way along the ledge back to the center of the building, up the ladder-like steps along the roof to the opening into the bell tower.

It was a slow and painful journey for both of them down the many stairs, and Sarah found that she had to support Eric or he never would’ve made it. But, finally, they reached the bottom floor where Albrecht had dragged himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


End file.
